Post 6
Liberals and Buddhists tell us, “we’re all connected”. Science is increasingly showing us the truth of this assertion. Quantum physics shows us the entanglement of particles at vast distances that respond instantaneously to each other beyond the speed of light. Biology shows us each of our dependence on the food web. Systems theory makes clear how changes in carbon levels affect ocean temperatures which affects sea level rise. Our psychological understanding of child rearing and of trauma has advanced dramatically in the last 50 years. Attachment styles between parents and children often have lifelong repercussions. Mirror neurons in the brain are partially responsible for this. Seeing someone smile, the same area of our brain lights up as when we actually smile ourselves. Rather than genes alone, it is the interaction of genes with environment that determines heredity. Whether a gene expresses itself or not is determined by epigenetic markers that are switched on and off based on chemical interactions dependent on stress levels, for instance. Changes that might have taken place over millennia in family genetics can occur in a generation. The children of concentration camp victims bare the markers of the trauma of their parents, even when born many years after imprisonment. This ultimately affects lifelong probability of certain disease. Conversely when a victim of trauma meets with someone attentive and compassionate, whose nervous system remains steadily regulated, co-regulation occurs through nervous system entrainment. This can allow someone who’s been carrying trauma in the body for years to approach the experience with less triggering and to more consciously process a shock or wound that couldn’t be handled alone.
This wealth of data illustrating interconnectivity can hardly be denied, yet often seems far removed from our everyday reality. Struggling against traffic to sit in an office cubicle or wait on demanding customers, we feel it’s us against the world. It’s all we can do to try to stay sane and make a living for ourselves. “Oneness” sounds lovely to some of us but to many “might makes right” and “every man for himself” makes the most sense under the circumstances. We live on a planet with finite resources and we better get ours before others get it first. We can hardly be blamed for wanting to survive before we can even consider what it is to thrive. Beyond this if we are thriving in a material sense, we often grasp more firmly onto what is for “us” and defend it against “them”. There’s a poverty of spirit that often affects even the richest of us. We forget or ignore our connection to the rest of the world as long and “me and mine” are good for now.
It’s an extremely complex world, after all. How can we be expected to solve climate change with our family recycling bin, or what possible dent can I make in world poverty with even a large contribution to charity? The mind reels and we return to our comforts when faced with the enormity of the tasks facing humanity. Cynicism sets in. All this is absolutely understandable from the perspective of the limited mind. There really is no figuring it out.
And yet we have moments of insight and grace. The most hardened of us with any soul left glow with magnanimity and generosity under self-satisfied circumstances. For the moment we can actually forget ourselves and our struggles and let something else in. People experience oneness on the meditation cushion, during good sex or an inspiring chat with a friend, out in nature, at a concert, sharing a meal, under the influence of a substance, “in the zone” while playing sports, making music or art, on vacation, or holding a newborn baby. Sometimes for no apparent reason at all we just feel the clouds break and the heaviness of usual circumstances seems like just a bad dream. Tasks are easier to perform in this state. Energy levels rise and inspiration is close at hand. New ideas or ways of being seem accessible. Old grudges don’t hold the same sway and we consider for a moment changing our opinions.
We almost always attribute these moments to circumstances. “I got what I wanted so I’ relaxed for a moment.” And this may well be the case. We are not willing to relax and let the light in until we get ours but there is another way. Jesus said, “seek ye first the kingdom of God and all else shall be added unto you.” He goes on to list a series of material wins. But then he asks us to, “take no thought for tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.”
This sounds at best naive and irresponsible and at worst a completely insane prescription for poverty and death. What I think he is pointing to here though are the moments of insight and grace. Our moments of oneness, of magnanimity and generosity. The moments we forget ourselves and consider changing our minds. These moments are the moments we enter the kingdom of God, the moments when our intuition or direct experience of connection and interconnectivity is more real than all our worries and judgements. In these moments if we think of it, it is clear to us that poverty and death lose their sting. These moments need not be only passing and random, for us to forget and get back to the “real world”. These moments of the deep reality of interconnection and wholeness can be available to us at all times if we learn to prioritize them for their own sake. We can prioritize them because we value Truth. The truth of interconnectivity is evident on the scientific level. It’s evident on the psychological level. On the level of Spirit it is most immediate and obvious. All our thoughts about how reality is ordered pale in comparison to inspiration. We need not use Christian quotes to arrive at this reality but they do occur to me. “With man these things are impossible, but with God all things are possible.” This is not an exhortation to belief. It is a description of our direct experience when we prioritize our wholeness and connection. “We” are not capable or responsible for ordering the universe in our favor. Everything has been well enough ordered and running fine without us. It is we who get in the way. We can get out of the way by participating in connectivity.
We are not responsible for the ultimate ordering of the world, but we can be responsible for connecting to our Souls and therefore to the intelligent vitality and flow of Life. We can do this by being aware of when we are not inspired and deciding not to accept that as the status quo. Every uninspired moment is run by an old version of “me”. Even in the midst of illness or hard work, it is most often possible to remain connected to our source of Life. If we first prioritize that connection before deciding we need circumstances to change in order to be inspired, we can begin to increase our number of inspired moments.
Work on this can begin through noticing old voices and attitudes and fleshing out who they are and where they come from so we can gain separation from them. It can be done through becoming mindful of our embodied experience and sensing into our contracted states to become aware of them and gain more spaciousness. It can be done by slowing down when we do experience awesome moments and really anchoring them in the memory and body, to practice accessing these states at will. These processes can be powerfully assisted by intentional psychedelic work. It shows us patterns we are generally too identified with to see. We become aware that we have more choice.
The choice to plug into interconnectivity and the intelligence of Life organizing itself can be a radical shift of mindset. We are used to controlling things and making great efforts to get our way. Becoming open to the possibilities of noticing synchronicity and developing discrimination and inner guidance can ease the transition. Just the simple shift of suspending our disbelief in the effortless flow of things can invite the participation of the Universe into our development. Our willingness to let things be magical can affect the flow of magic. All this can be easier said than done. It can be a great help to find a guide you can trust. I’ve had some guides but many of them were in books. Sorting out the specifics of one’s life and how to align with greater Purpose is complex. I’ve stumbled around for many years to arrive at a place where I can most often feel in flow, and even more years to arrive at a place where I feel I can understand how the process works. Mostly that’s by me getting out of the way. “Of my own self I can do nothing…” writes John quoting Jesus, “[but what I do happens] of the will of the Father that sent me.” This need not be interpreted as grandiose claim or the words of one and only savior. It can be seen as a realization of how the world truly works when we get honest, learn how to get out of our own way, and plug in.